"You startled me. I didn't hear you knock."
He had not knocked. The puzzle in his head increased. Why should he knock? His mouth opened and shut again. He came forward hesitatingly.
"I—I—what do you mean, darling?" he began. "I wanted to bring you these."
His coming thus was to her symbolic of legal intrusion upon all her future privacy. In that year, privacy had been one of the things she enjoyed most, after the edge was off the first loneliness. She found it hard to relinquish her right to it. She stepped into the frock quickly, and drew it upwards before he reached her. His hands were full of little things, which he cast in a hurry upon the dressing-table. She knew that he wanted to touch, to fondle her. She slipped her arms swiftly into the sleeves and fastened the first hook across her breast; in her eyes a shrinking antagonism unveiled itself.
She uttered hurriedly: "We have to be very quiet; the children are asleep."
He cast a cursory glance towards the screened corner.
"They're all right; they can't see or hear or anything else. Come here and let me put this hair-band thing on."
She stood a dressing-table length away, fumbling with the hooks, her eyes fixed on him.
"I have lots of things to say to you," she began suddenly.
"Say them to-morrow," he replied in his old way.